Data Trails, Data Sales

Analytics seem like they benefit a content creator, specifically one seeking an audience beyond their immediate peer group, more than a reader or user. Leaving a data trail may be useful for their use of services online, such as being recommended content and products that actually appeal to them, and in reaching them at the right time. Yet as much as this is a benefit for a user, it is still ultimately in service of those trying to sell to them or gain their attention; this makes for a relationship between creator/seller and consumer that is symbiotic at best, but often imbalanced. And consumers and content creators alike are ultimately benefiting those with the most power in the online ecosystem, such as those selling data. It may not be the ‘breadcrumbs’ of data themselves that are a problem, but that we leave these data trails without realizing how far they go, or understanding how they work: “Basically, there are a lot of apps, a lot of background processes and often, we don’t know exactly what they’re doing” (Pod Academy). It is always beneficial for any Internet user to develop their digital literacy and learn how and why their data is being collected, and this may be a solution to the anxiety about data tracking. However, should it be the responsibility of users to do this independent research to find out how and why they’re being tracked and exploited? Even knowing this information, users may only become more anxious and still fatigued by the knowledge they’re being watched. Analytics can be mutually beneficial to content creator and user when applied to independently created content, to expand its reach to potentially interested readers, but the most problematic aspects of data tracking seem to stem from capitalist interests. When Internet users are treated as commodities, not audience members or information seekers, the most unethical practices related to data occur. The use of analytics is therefore yet another product of capitalism, but in this case we are both consumer and commodity.